As rural and urban infrastructure continues to age and develop, there is a continual demand for cost-effective technologies relating to the construction and maintenance of highways, railways and the like. Often unappreciated but vitally important to the construction of such infrastructure is the underpass system. Underpass systems are typically designed to carry not only dead loads, but also live loads. While some of the most impressive underpass systems are used in mining or forestry applications where spans can exceed twenty (20) meters, they are also very common in regular highway construction to allow passage of railway, watercourses or other vehicular/pedestrian traffic. While concrete structures have been regularly employed for these purposes, such concrete structures are very expensive to install, are cost prohibitive in remote areas, and are subject to strength weakening due to corrosion of the reinforcing metal, thereby requiring ongoing repair and limiting their use in certain environments.
In the field of overhead structures, such as for example but not limited to box culverts, circular and ovoid culverts, arch-type structures, encased concrete structures and other similar structures that make use of corrugated metal plate, there have been significant advances. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,118,218 to Musser et al. discloses a corrugated box culvert constructed from reinforced corrugated steel or aluminum sheets having very deep corrugations and generally having a uniform bending moment profile for the whole length of the culvert. By using significant material on the crown portions as well as on the haunch portions of the box culvert, significant loads can be carried by the box culvert. Ovoid and circular culvert structures have been generally described in U.K. Patent Application No. 2,140,848.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,326,191 to Wilson et al. discloses a reinforced metal box culvert having a standard crown, opposing sides and opposite curved haunches. The culvert is characterized in having continuous corrugated metal sheet reinforcement secured to at least the crown of the culvert, and extends the length of the culvert which is effective in supporting the load. The corrugated reinforcement has a profile which abuts the crown corrugations with the troughs of the reinforcement being secured to the crests of the corrugated crown. The corrugated reinforcement sheet has a curvature complementary to the corrugated crown to facilitate securement. The continuous reinforcement, as secured to the culvert in an uninterrupted manner, provides an optimum load carrying capacity for selected extent of reinforcement provided by the reinforcement metal sheets.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,833,394 to McCavour et al. discloses a composite concrete reinforced corrugated metal arch-type structure comprising a first set of shaped corrugated metal plates interconnected in a manner to define a base arch structure with the corrugations extending transversely of the longitudinal length of the arch, and a second series of shaped corrugated metal plates interconnected in a manner to overlay the first set of interconnected plates of the base arch. The second series of plates has at least one corrugation extending transversely of the longitudinal length of the arch, with the troughs of the corrugations of the second series of plates secured to the crests of the first set of plates. The interconnected series of second plates and the first set of plates define individual, transversely extending, enclosed continuous cavities filled with concrete to define an interface of the concrete enclosed by the metal interior surfaces of the second series of crests and first set of troughs. The interior surfaces of the cavities for each of the first and second plates have means for providing a shear bond at the concrete-metal interface to provide individual curved beams transversing the arch, whereby the structure provides positive and negative bending resistance and combined bending and axial load resistance to superimposed loads.
In some prior art overhead structures, adjacent corrugated metal plates are secured by overlapping circumferential edges of the corrugated metal plates so as to align holes therein, and then passing a fastener such as a bolt through each pair of aligned holes. As will be appreciated, this approach is cumbersome as two or more individuals are typically required to affix each bolt to the structure. Additionally, the axial strength of prior art overhead structures is generally a function of the shear strength of the bolts securing the overlapping portions of the plates.
Other approaches for securing adjacent corrugated metal plates have been described. For example, the publication entitled “Tunnel Liner Plate” by Armtec of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, discloses a steel tunnel liner plate. The liner plate forms part of a corrugated steel, two-flange sectional lining system designed for use primarily in soft-ground tunneling.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,650,369 to Thomas et al. discloses a low headroom culvert wherein a series of shallow arch-shaped flat metallic sections are overlappingly secured together. Torsion and buckle resistant reinforcing cross ribbing elements are affixed to the exterior culvert sections at selected points along the culvert to form girder-like beams. The culvert comprises crown and haunch ribs spliced or joined to each other by means of a bolt fastener and nut assembly. The bottom base flanges of the various haunch and crown rib beam segments are secured directly to the outside surfaces of the culvert sections.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,958,476 to Kotter discloses an architectural cover panel system of individually adaptive panels for covering structural support members of an underlying structure such as girders. An individual adaptive panel includes a sheet of flexible material having a generally convex cross-section and is provided with corrugations oriented perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the panel. In one preferred embodiment the convex panel is provided with edged portions attached to the lateral sides of the panel. The edge portions are similarly provided with corrugations oriented parallel to and intersecting or merging into the corrugations of the convex panel portion.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,493,729 to Semmes discloses a commercial rooftop enclosure that utilizes a roof and wall panel design incorporated with structurally bent rails connecting panel assemblies to each other and to a corrugated panel steel base. The enclosure is formed into a torsion box style building wherein the strength of the enclosure is derived from its overall “unibody” style construction. With this design the rooftop enclosure purports to offer a lower overall profile, reduced weight and increased structural strength over its conventional counterparts.
When overhead structures fabricated of corrugated metal plates are used in the presence of fluids, there may be seepage or leakage of the fluids through joints of the structures. Improvements are generally desired.
It is therefore an object at least to provide a novel corrugated metal plate and an overhead structure incorporating the same.